The Junta de Andalucía has declared the municipality of Mijas as a Zone of Great Tourist Influx (ZGAT) valid indefinitely, so shops will be able to open their doors in the summer period and holidays such as Easter, as announced on Tuesday by the mayor of Tourism, José Carlos Martín.
The councilor has pointed out that this cataloging is final since it was published in the Official Bulletin of the Junta de Andalucía (BOJA) on March 16highlighting that “it is a recognition given by the Junta de Andalucía to different municipalities for that category because we are a town that has a tourist attraction and many visitors”.
According to Martín, this allows “continue to provide services, improving that quality that we want all our tourists to have”, while adding that “this cataloging comes from meet a series of requirements such as ratiosthe number of overnight stays or the number of visitors that Mijas has and belongs to this small select group that makes us a tourist reference”.
In this sense, this classification of ‘Area of Great Tourist Influx’ entails the opening of shops from Palm Sunday to Resurrection Sunday, both included, and from June 1 to September 30, Sundays included. “This makes us have a plus more in terms of other tourist destinations that at a certain moment do not have that catalogue”, Martín has indicated.
For his part, the Councilor for Industry, Andrés Ruiz, declared that “we already had this nuance, but now we granted indefinitely without the need to renew every four years”.
In this way, he has assessed that “it is true that can be changed at any timebut this gives us some peace of mind that every year we can count on those periods, both summer and Easter openingwhich is another tourist attraction and allows us to boost the local economy and generate employment”.
It should be noted that this action also provides benefits to Mijas that affect the economy and the generation of employment due to full weekend openings, so increase the volume of business and with it the hiring of personnel, which supposes a greater possibility for unemployed people.
Ruiz has highlighted that Mijas is also a tourist attraction from the cultural and sporting point of view, one of the key characteristics for the denomination of Zone of Great Tourist Influx, emphasizing that “the historical complex is cataloged as such, and that we have assets of cultural interest they are a focus of attraction for tourism that has had a lot to do with it, as well as the outstanding sporting events that have been taking place in our municipality”.